Don't underestimate ‘Longmire’ creator

Craig Johnson’s novel “A Serpent’s Tooth” is the ninth in a series featuring Walt Longmire, a genial sheriff in rural Wyoming. The story centers on a missing mom and her teenage son, kicked out of a Mormon splinter group that may have ties to the CIA and Big Oil.

“Longmire,” the TV series based on his characters, just started its second season on A&E, which means Johnson is busier than ever. This week he’ll leave the ranch he built himself near Ucross, Wyo., population 25, for a two-month book tour, half of it spent riding from store to store on his motorcycle.

He’ll be at Mysterious Galaxy Friday at 7 p.m.

Q: What’s your favorite part about touring?

A: Meeting the people. I think about how many authors there have been in other time periods who never really got to meet the people who read their books. I’m kind of glad that I live in the time that I do because somebody can read the books and jump on the email. On my website, the contact button is my personal email, and I have to laugh because the majority of emails start out, “Whoever it is that’s responsible for answering Mr. Johnson’s emails” and I’m sitting here at the ranch, looking at the computer and thinking, I need to come up with a character, a guy who’s responsible for answering my emails: “We done answered 17 emails today and we ain’t answering any more. Good luck tomorrow.” Something like that.

Q: What’s your least favorite part of touring?

A: Probably the travel part. Traveling these days is like going to jail. You’ve gotta get strip-searched and stand in line for four hours. You’re usually dealing with surly people who don’t want to help you out in any way, shape or form.

Q: And the food sometimes isn’t much better than jail food.

A: No, it’s not! You’re absolutely right about that. Oh, my God.

Q: Any particularly memorable questions you’ve been asked on the road?

A: The biggest one that always surprises me is that there are a lot of people who tend to forget that Walt and I are not the same guy. I come in there, I’m a big guy and I got a cowboy hat on and I think they just automatically make that connection. They’ll say, “When you carried Henry off the mountain” and I’m like, “Whoa, wait a minute. That was not a documentary. It’s a novel.” It doesn’t happen quite so much now that Robert Taylor has taken on the role of Longmire (on television). As my wife says, he’s kind of a TV version of me: taller, better looking, with a better voice.

Q: There must be parts of you, though, in the Walt Longmire character.

A: Yeah, any time you’re writing a character in the first person, that’s true. If you’re in his head for 350 to 400 pages, an awful lot of yourself is going to filter through into the philosophies and the beliefs of the character. My wife also has the best quote about that. She says Walt Longmire is who Craig would like to be in 10 years but he’s off to an incredibly slow start.